Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: Eye[s] in the Sky, Part II

In Part I I described how I was inspired by Ed Valigursky’s stunning and powerful cover — with its giant eye, running figures, and perspective lines drawn across the artificial field heightening the tension — to look through my image collection and find similar examples. Since I made the last post I’ve collected quite a few more examples (from my own collection and image collections online) along similar lines.

Mitchell Hooks’ cover for the 1958 edition of The Big Eye (1949) by Max Ehrlich has long been one of my favorite covers and it has cropped up in various posts over the years…. The uncredited cover for the 1969 edition of The Cosmic Eye (1969) by Mack Reynolds illustrates the principle — the eye symbolizing some otherworldly power, or oppressive government, or alien presence — in its archetypal simplicity.

Karel Thole’s cover for the 1962 edition of The Cosmic Puppets (1956) by Philip K. Dick is rather more complex — and artistically stirring. The cityscape, the strange sky evoking the microscopic cells, and the eyes situated within the cell-like matrix…

I kind of love all of these, for one reason or another — except the one on “The Mote in God’s Eye.” It’s very…literal.

I really love that Amazing Stories cover, though. The pic posted here has some cross-hatching from the scan, so I looked for a clearer copy (that, and I really wanted to see what was going on in that eye.) Gorgeous — almost proto-steampunk.

I wonder why Moorcock originally published those stories in The Deep Fix not under his own name… One is co-written with Barrington J. Bayley — who I must admit, is a rather imaginative writer despite his poor prose. I took my pseudonym from one of his novels (hehe).

Aha! The source is revealed! And I had thought it was from the two characters from the Old Testament, Joachim being the father of Mary and Boaz a figure in The Book of Ruth.

For me, Moorcock is one of the most interesting figures in Sci-Fi. His life story sneaking its way into a lot of his work, especially how he was affected by WWII. The novel version of Behold The Man is one of my favorites. I know he used quite a few pseudonyms, but I can’t imagine why he used so many. It’s not as if he is so prolific that he didn’t want to flood the market!